Finally I won, and was permitted to go to the school in the
day for a few months, with the understanding that I was to rise
early in the morning and work in the furnace till nine o'clock,
and return immediately after school closed in the afternoon for
at least two more hours of work.
The schoolhouse was some distance from the furnace, and as I had
to work till nine o'clock, and the school opened at nine, I found
myself in a difficulty. School would always be begun before I
reached it, and sometimes my class had recited. To get around
this difficulty I yielded to a temptation for which most people,
I suppose, will condemn me; but since it is a fact, I might as
well state it. I have great faith in the power and influence of
facts. It is seldom that anything is permanently gained by
holding back a fact. There was a large clock in a little office
in the furnace. This clock, of course, all the hundred or more
workmen depended upon to regulate their hours of beginning and
ending the day's work. I got the idea that the way for me to
reach school on time was to move the clock hands from half-past
eight up to the nine o'clock mark. This I found myself doing
morning after morning, till the furnace "boss" discovered that
something was wrong, and locked the clock in a case.
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